Materia Medica Malaysiana

Plans for Rehab Hospital with Australian help
26 November, 2003
Kuala Lumpur: The Health Ministry is planning to set up a Rehabilitation Hospital with the co-operation of the Australian health authorities.

Health Minister Datuk Chua Jui Meng (pic) said Tuesday that the hospital, the first in the country, would be built at the site of the former Lady Templer Hospital in Cheras with the objective of dealing with post-road accident cases, stroke victims, brain injury patients and other physically crippling injuries.

“We are looking at the Australian (model) because they have very advanced rehabilitation centres, while we are far behind in terms of rehabilitating patients,” he told reporters after attending the Hari Raya Open House hosted by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, at the Putra World Trade Centre here.

Chua explained that Malaysia had an excellent health care system but was lacking in terms of rehabilitation of patients.

“In Australia, there are so many rehabilitation hospitals, for example in Melbourne and Adelaide. They have several but in Malaysia, we do not even have one,” he added.

Chua said during his visit to Australia, from Nov 14 until Nov 24, he secured the co-operation of the Australian health authorities to help Malaysia set up a rehabilitation hospital. A co-operation agreement would be signed soon.

He said similar co-operation had also been secured to set up a Women and Children’s Hospital, also the first in the country, which would be situated near the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

This included getting one of Australia’s top paediatric specialists, Prof. Hock Tan, a Malaysian living in Australia, to help the Health Ministry set up the hospital.

“He (Hock Tan) has persuaded the Southern Australian health authorities to receive medical staff from Malaysia to be trained in Adelaide to be specialists of paediatric care,” said Chua. - Bernama